This project is to conduct three symposia at the 26th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology, November 4-7, 2010. The meeting is the only one of its kind in the U.S.A. that provides a forum for the reporting and the discussion and publication of new research results in the areas of space and gravitational biology. The symposia are titled ""The spaceflight environment: accelerated skeletal aging and cancer?", "Photobiology of microbes, plants and animals", and "Signaling in calcium-dependent development of cell polarity". The symposia speakers were selected because their research touches on objectives stated by the nine National Institutes of Health in the joint NIH and NASA program announcement soliciting biomedical-related research for the International Space Station National Laboratory. Student travel stipends will be provided, with outreach awareness to include women and underrepresented minorities, to promote active participation in the research and educational activities of the meeting. Peer-reviewed scientific articles from the meeting will be published in the Gravitational and Space Biology journal. An outcome objective of the meeting is to demonstrate how gravitational and space biology research provides unique approaches to elucidating biological mechanisms, and this knowledge may contribute to improving the health of humans on Earth.